HTC One V : Build
The HTC One family - which also includes the higher-specced HTC One X and HTC One S - looks stunning and the HTC One V offers a gun metal grey body with the familiar HTC ridge (for those that remember the HTC Hero) at the bottom of the smartphone which neatly directs your fingers to the Android control buttons. At 115g, it’s 25g lighter than an iPhone 4S but feels sturdy. The rubber panel on the rear neatly drops to reveal the SIM and MicroSD card slots and works brilliantly, feeling rugged and secure.
The camera lens is surrounded by the same matt rubber coating which protects the lens and flash when placed on a flat surface. The 3.7 inch screen sits above some sharp lines on the unibody design and is Gorilla Glass coated. The HTC One V manages to avoid fingerprints from all angles too and feels like a genuine step-up in build quality from the Nokia Lumia 710. The components feel premium rather than budget and the lack of any shiny plastic ensures that the classic design feels impressive the moment the HTC One V is lifted out of the box.
HTC One V: Screen
The 3.7 inch LCD screen features a 480 by 800 resolution and a 252ppi display which isn’t at the high-end of smartphone tech, matching the Nokia Lumia 710 pixel for pixel, but it is vivid and works well at all angles, lacking definition only in the most complex of web pages. Importantly, against budget contenders like the original Samsung Galaxy Ace with a 165ppi display, it delivers a much better viewing experience. We found the touch controls average, lacking the immediate response times of high-end smartphones like iPhone 4S and Samsung Galaxy S2.
HTC One V: Performance
The 5 megapixel camera produces average results in low light but is fast and works well for 720p video. The main camera controls are on-screen rather than solid buttons on the body of the HTC One V but the Instagram style shooting modes are a nice touch and it’s easy to shoot and upload at speed for Facebook and Twitter fans. Inside, there’s a 1GHZ MSM8255 Snapdragon processor that keeps most tasks running at a good speed, only pausing for thought when we flicked between apps rapidly though that’s to be expected with 512MB RAM rather than the 1GB RAM of the HTC One S. An AnTuTu benchmark test resulted in a overall score of 2458, behind the Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus with a overall score of 3153.
